Tips for doing more Push-Ups

I’m no fitness expert/coach, but I am working my way through the 100 Push-up challenge. Here is what I found helps:

I noticed that a lot of people entering week 3 from week 2 can’t actually do it. I think the main reason is lack of rest from the test at the end of week 2.

In my case I struggled with the first session of week 3 even though the reps are about the same as the last session of week 2. It’s just because our muscles were overloaded by the test and take time to recover. As we get older, this recovery takes longer I think.

But to complete the session, I did small pauses during the latter sets to complete all the required reps. I did 80 reps total in the 1st session of week 3.

Now, today I did session 2 of week 3. This is at least 100 reps in total. This time I did 101 reps. But, I did this 3 days after the last session and I did the same thing as before taking some brief rests when my muscle power was about to run out. I don’t want to go back a week, so I was doing whatever it took to push out the reps.

Breaking this down, the required reps were 20, 25, 15, 15 followed by maxing out at >= 25

I did the first 20 OK. Then I did 15 pause, 5 and 5. Then I had a couple of minutes rest and I think I did 15 straight reps. Then something like 10 pause 5. And finally 15 pause 5 and 6 to complete these and add one to make up for my pauses. Well, it’s not exactly how it’s meant to be done but I don’t want to drop back a week.

Also, after surfing some YouTube videos of people that are doing this challenge and other places, I found that most people really struggle with the transition from week 2 to 3. So hopefully I gave you some tips that keep you motivated and on track

So, I think it is important to rest for even 2 days between these exercises and if you can’t complete the reps, recognise this and pause for a few seconds and pump them out. If you wait until your muscles fill with lactic acid and turn to jelly, then you can’t complete the reps and it can’t be good.

The 3rd session of week 3 is even more harsh so I will make sure my muscles are fully recovered before I tackle that monster.

p.s. today I rigged up a pull up bar to work the upper back, biceps and stretch the spine, more on that later.